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US Trains Uganda Military

Uganda People’s Defence Force soldiers recently completed a 10-week joint engagement with U.S. Marines and Sailors assigned to Special-Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force Africa for a deployment to Somalia later this year. Uganda provides troops to the African Union Mission in Somalia, or AMISOM, a regional peacekeeping mission in Somalia supported by the United Nations. The Marine task force supports Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa’s mission, which is to counter violent extremist organizations in Somalia and East Africa, by sharing best practices and building strong partnerships with the Ugandan soldiers. Held at the Peace Support Operations Training Center-Singo in Kakola, Uganda, the Americans and Ugandans exchanged ideas to improve soldiers’ skills in marksmanship, vehicle maintenance, communication equipment and convoy operations.

Since January, the team has worked with more than 800 African service members in 12 countries.

UGANDA 2012 HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT from US State Department PDF
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Uganda is a constitutional republic led since 1986 by President Yoweri Museveni of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party. Voters reelected Museveni to a fourth five-year term in February 2011. While the election marked an improvement over previous elections, it was marred by irregularities. State security forces (SSF) generally reported to civilian authorities.
The three most serious human rights problems in the country were a lack of respect for the integrity of the person (including unlawful killings, torture, and other abuse of suspects and detainees); unwarranted restrictions on civil liberties (including freedom of assembly, the media, and association); and violence and discrimination against marginalized groups such as women (including female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C), children (including victims of sexual abuse and ritual killing), persons with disabilities, and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community.
Other human rights problems included harsh prison conditions; arbitrary and politically motivated arrest and detention; incommunicado and lengthy pretrial detention; restrictions on the right to a fair trial; restrictions on freedom of press; electoral irregularities; official corruption; mob violence; trafficking in persons; and forced labor, including child labor.
The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), driven out of the country in 2006, continued to hold children forcibly abducted from the country. The governments of Uganda, South Sudan, the Central African Republic (CAR), and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) continued military actions against the LRA. The SSF and other government agents committed human rights abuses, generally with impunity. The government took minimal steps to hold perpetrators accountable.